I am very thrilled to share the photos I took from my leisurely trip yesterday to Brugge, Belgium. The photos are not technically perfect due to the fact that I was too lazy to bring my DSLR and just used my point and shoot/digicam Sanyo X-Acti. I feel that I did not do justice to my subject by making less than perfect images. Oh well, there will be other chances again I hope and next opportunity to see a city with rave reviews I should bring the DSLR.

I planned this day trip more than a week ago after finding out that my husband will have his boys night out. I grabbed the chance immediately to fulfill my now deprived wanderlust. I was deciding between Cologne and Brugge. Cologne took less time to travel and the tickets were 10 bucks cheaper and Brugge was 3.5 hours train travel. Both had World Heritage Sites but the extreme praises I read from several websites about Brugge won me over plus I can understand and speak a bit of Dutch. Flemish, along with French is the National language and Flemish is essentially the same as the Dutch language, only with a different accent.

I found out the hard way that my train travel was severely underestimated plus I am guilty of not reading the fine print. When I presented my ticket at the Thalys high speed train conductor I found out that I was in the wrong train. He said that I could actually use all other trains except this one because this one needed reservations and perhaps more expensive. It was good that he let me get off at Schiphol without charging me a fee. He also advised me to find the train with bright pink colors. I understood what he meant. The locals called it the normaal trein for Belgium or the IC train. At Schiphol, I waited for half an hour for the train. So that’s another half an hour delay. And then, another delay was caused by me missing the connecting train at Antwerpen. From Antwerpen, I took another train which is the Gent St. Peters to Oostende train. The Antwerpen Centraal is quite a huge terminal quite similar to Amsterdam’s Centraal but somehow it looks more tourist friendly with better positioned signs for directions and train schedules. For me, it also looks prettier from the inside.

Brugge is such a tourist-friendly city. No wonder everyone is so starry eyed when talking about it. All the talk about great food was true and waiters were very attractive attentive and spoke good English happily (not hesitantly). The menus were written in more then 3 languages! The vis soup (fish soup) I had was so similar in look and taste to the Filipino sinigang you would almost suspect there is a Pinoy cook there. However I suspect that this soup is Belgian in origin. The only difference is that it wasn’t sour. The touristy stuff are of course just as I hoped for. Wonderful architecture and history. But then, most of Europe has that. I like the fact that the sites are all within leisurely walking distance to each other and that you had the option to take the bus or pay for a bus tour. In my case I tried it all. When it started to shower and it suddenly became chilly then I decided to pay the 11 bucks for the guided bus tour. I almost fell asleep but overall it was just ok. I wouldn’t recommend it though if it was a sunny day. You better just spend the time walking. And you would see that people of varying physical conditions can actually tour the place. It is not uncommon to see elderly people, handicapped and people that are not in good physical condition to enjoy walking around. If you get tired, surely within 3 minutes walk there would be a spot where you can sit down and rest. You can either sit down and spend a moment of quiet in one of the ancient churches and chapel or sit on the bridge next to the water or in a bench next to the park. It’s really very relaxing! I didn’t even mention all the chocolate truffles, waffles and Belgian fries you can order along the way! So yes, inspite of the long 5 hour one way train travel it was all worth it. I mean even as a day trip. But then I think I should have taken a bus. If I had a driver’s license here I would take the car and park it outside of the city and take a local tram to the center. It would have saved a lot of time!

** My Weekend special roundtrip train to Brugge cost 50 euros, lunch at the Grote Markt (touristy) with soup, beef stew + fries and fruit salad cost around 30 bucks including lemonade.